


shake loose all your garnet jewels

by lastwingedthing



Category: The Lord of the Rings - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-22
Updated: 2016-10-22
Packaged: 2018-08-24 01:58:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,894
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8351863
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lastwingedthing/pseuds/lastwingedthing
Summary: AU: Éowyn rode to Rivendell and joined the Fellowship with Boromir. So did Arwen Undómiel.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [kimaracretak](https://archiveofourown.org/users/kimaracretak/gifts).



Though it is a dark night, ragged clouds shielding a gibbous moon, Éowyn still knows she is home. Knows it from the scent of bracken and grass crushed under horses' hooves, the fragrance of horses, the murmur of Rohirrim speech at the changing of the guard by her sleeping-place.

She's brimful of feeling, flowing over, but she cannot name what it is that she feels. Longing, sadness? Regret?

How can these be her feelings when Gríma Wormtongue and his master have departed? When her beloved uncle, her lord is free?

Here in her own lands she cannot forget the despair that choked her, all those months and years she spent watching Rohan decline and her lord wither. Before she left, like a thief in the night, to follow a wanderer from Gondor and the rumour of wisdom in another land that could cure her lord - or so she hoped.

She chose rightly. A companion of the fellowship, she is, now, a warrior in the great battle of Helm's Deep just past. Glory and honour hers. Her people and her kin see it, or have been forced to see it, she holds all her dreams fulfilled in the palms of her hands. She will ride with her people to Gondor's aid, where more deeds await...

So what is this feeling in her, filling her? Why can't she let go?

 

 

Éowyn is still awake when the commotion around Gandalf's camp begins, strident voices crying out in shock and anger. She catches only snatches of the story, some transgression from dear foolish Pippin, the hobbit youth who is a decade her senior yet still more than half a child. Gandalf takes the hobbit up before him on Shadowfax, and before Éowyn has time to think they are gone, already, riding hard for Mundburg.

Aragorn the Ranger and the Elf-Lady stand somewhat apart from the others, speaking fiercely and urgently in the Elven tongue. Éowyn tries not to watch them, tries not to show she is watching them.

"I will go." The Lady Arwen has broken into the common tongue. "I must. Gandalf will need aid before the end, I feel it, and even my aid would be better than none."

Aragorn sighs, deeply, and steps aside. "Far better than that, my lady. As you will have it. But it is a long road to Minas Tirith, and a dangerous one, alone. And I cannot ride with you. You know the road I must take."

The lady smiles. "That, I know. All will be well. Do not fear for me."

Éowyn frowns. Aragorn is her sword-brother, her comrade-in-arms, but the Elf-Lady has always held herself a little aloof from the others of the fellowship, even in the depths of Moria, even in the dark. Éowyn respects her courage, but it is hard to grow close to her, hard to find the words to speak to her.

Éowyn still does not fully understand why Arwen followed her betrothed out of the safety of Rivendell; the Elf is no warrior, as Éowyn is, has been raised to a softer gentler life even than the hobbits. And yet she is fearless...

There is something there, some story Éowyn does not understand.

Elves sang in Lady Arwen's honour in the Golden Wood.

But now she would ride, alone, to Minas Tirith? Ahead of all the armies of the world that are gathering?

"I would ride with you, lady," Éowyn says, words spilling out before she knows she is speaking. "If you would have an escort on the road..."

She thinks of Edoras, the shining roofs of Meduseld, the rock where the great grass plain breaks like sea against shore. She thinks of riding through the gates of her home into glory.

But - Edoras seems small to her, now. The world is so large.

And the Elf is her companion also, of the Fellowship that was broken and yet endures. Éowyn will see her safe on her road. It is her duty, but it is not only duty that compels her - it is that feeling, that feeling she cannot name -

 

 

Minas Tirith is beautiful in the evening light. Stone city, white city: from her people's tales Éowyn expected a place as hard and cold as the White Mountains. But it is not so. Everywhere Éowyn turns there are spring flowers sprouting from crevices, moss softening the hard lines of walls, fruit trees bright with blossom. Behind stone and iron there are green courtyards and fountains, and even the homes of the humble have window boxes of cheerful spring flowers and fragrant herbs.

It is beautiful. Éowyn sees it - more, she sees the Lady Arwen see it, smiling at the city around them as their path takes them higher.

Éowyn wonders. Great as it seems to her, Minas Tirith is only a city of men. Surely a lady raised in Rivendell and the Golden Wood has seen greater.

To spare their exhausted horses they walk up the long road to the Citadel. Great-hearted grey mares of the Mearas, Theoden gave them, and urged on by the Elf-Lady and a lady of Eorl's kindred they have managed deeds near as great as Shadowfax; they have arrived only a day behind him, it seems. Not too late for whatever it is that has driven the Lady Arwen out of Rohan.

The Elf-Lady keeps her cloak wrapped close round her face as they pass through the city. It is Éowyn who announced that they are of Gandalf's fellowship to the gate-guards, Éowyn who asks men in the streets their way. In men's garb, with the sword and helm of a lord of the Rohirrim, none question her; they see only a man of their ally's people. There are no shieldmaidens in Gondor, Éowyn has heard. The men of Gondor, not expecting a woman, cannot see her for what she is.

But it is a different story when they are brought before the lord of the City, the pale Steward seated before another's throne.  

The Lady Arwen unhoods her cloak. Her beauty, in this dark room, is enough to steal breath away - but the Steward is unmoved.

"You are far from home," he says, voice as cold and hard as Éowyn expected his city to be. "Why did you think to find welcome here?"

"We are kin from afar," Arwen says. Her voice is quiet, and as hard as the Steward's. "I have made the choice of my father's brother, and come to aid you, if I can."

The Steward laughs. "Come to aid another, you mean. Do you think I do not know who is coming to my city? But he will find it a harder thing to take this city than he dreams, even if he had twenty Elf-witches behind him."

The lady smiles, sweet and slow. "But I come ahead of him. And it would be wiser to fear the one who comes to take this city from the east, I think."

"Who speaks of fear?" The Steward's voice is stern and proud.

But Arwen meets his gaze, then. The Steward is the first to look away.

 

 

And then comes the Darkness. Days without end, without dawn. The Steward's heir is dying in his father's halls, the Steward closed up with him, within. And below the walls - at last comes the Witch-King, the Lord of the Nazgûl. Lord of fear.

Éowyn waits on the walls with the city guard. They know her name, now; she is the Lady Éowyn of Rohan, King Theoden's niece. They have offered her armour to replace that which she left behind in Rohan to spare her horse its weight, she wears her own sword as she walks their walls. They have not yet let her join the companies who prepare for sortie, Dol Amroth's men who saved the last retreat from Cair Andros and the Causeway forts.

They have not let her join those companies _yet_. Éowyn, wiser now than the bitter girl who had ridden out of Edoras, does not begrudge their misplaced chivalry. She knows what is coming - knows her time to fight will come. Soon all hands that can bear a sword will be needed, and then she will show them what a shieldmaid of the Rohirrim can do.

For others, the time to fight is now. They walk the walls: Gandalf, whom men here call Mithrandir, the White Wizard. And - Éowyn's lady, the Lady Arwen.

When the lady comes, robed in the shining fabric she wove and stitched with her own hands, her hair unbound and shining even in this darkness - when the lady comes, the fear departs.

She sings to them - to the walls, to the warriors, to the city itself - sings to them in the elven tongue. Sings them to stand tall and fearless, sings away fear.

At the sound of her voice darkness rolls away and Éowyn can remember the stars again, and grass, and the music of cool water over stone.

But then she departs, as she must, and Éowyn hears the cries and the catapaults of the enemy, and the drums, always the drums.

Drums beat in the deeps of Moria, too, but these are louder.

There is smoke on the wind.

 

 

Éowyn is drenched with sweat and aching. Armour no longer shining - she has been fighting for hours on the lower walls, holding back the ladders and siege towers.

It is Helm's Deep all over again, but ten, a hundred times the scale. And dawn will not come.

Still she fights. There is no other choice. Even when Pippin comes hurtling amongst them to call Gandalf away to a greater need - she will fight here alone, if she must, until she falls.

She finds herself falling back towards the Great Gate, where the fighting is thickest and the men of Dol Amroth only barely hold the enemy at bay. The noise is deafening - or so she thinks; then they bring in the great ram, and she learns what deafening means.

Éowyn is not afraid, exactly. Only cold, so cold...

For a moment she thinks of Rohan, her Rohan - what has delayed her people? When shall they come?

The walls shake beneath her feet with every strike of the ram. The metal of the gate screams and squeals as it buckles - soon it must break.

The Eorlingas are too late, then. She will die here, among a foreign people... she draws herself up straighter. At least she will die on her feet.

But then above the noise of the hammer and the battle she hears a sweet voice, singing...

The great ram stops. The whole battle seems to stop, as Arwen Undómiel walks to the edge of the battlements.

"No further shall you come. The Gate shall hold."

She raises her hand, pale against the gloom. Éowyn is filled with wonder and sudden joy -

Far below there is laughter. The world turns cold again, and full of fear.

"You, forbid me? Do you think you have your foremother's power? You are nothing but the lesser spawn of a degenerate line, all greatness lost and wasted long ago. You are nothing. And you will be the last."

The Ringwraith's words fall hard and heavy as stones.

But Arwen is smiling...

"I am no Lúthien, this I know. I could not sing the Great Enemy to sleep with my spells, I do not have that power. But _nor do you_." Her voice is cool and bright and sharp as a knife. "You are nothing more than a shadow of a shadow of a power my people threw down into darkness. Sauron your master fled before Lúthien - and you have no more than a fraction of his power. What gifts I have are enough to contend with you. I will protect this city - my city - and _you will come no further_."

She is like light, Éowyn thinks dreamily, lost in the wonder of her, the joy. Like a lamp, clear and bright and shining, throwing back darkness... but it is her own self she burns to fuel it...

At once it is fear she feels. Fear for Arwen, fear for what this battle will cost her. But Éowyn will not lose her faith.

The light figure and the dark are silent, but Éowyn can sense their striving together, the fierceness of their battle. All the world seems poised on a knife's edge, waiting...

And then a cock crows, somewhere behind them.

There are horns, horns blowing wildly in the field.

"Eorlingas!" Éowyn cries aloud in delight, and her voice breaks the spell. The dark figure of the Lord of the Nazgûl is gone in an instant: to face this new threat, perhaps.

Arwen slumps in exhaustion. But the dawn, the dawn is coming...

Éowyn will ride out to join her people, she will fight with them. As Arwen has fought.

She can do no less.

 

 

The Houses of Healing are a calm place, and quiet. Éowyn wakes, sleeps, wakes again. The pain still lurks in her left arm and in her heart, biting and cruelly cold, and it times it gnaws at her until she has no choice but to cry aloud - but then someone comes to her, someone with soft warm hands to lay on the cold places and drive the pain away.

Éowyn wants to wake fully, wants to see the face of her healer, but exhaustion always drives her back down into the safe warm dark.

 

 

When she wakes in truth there is sunlight on the wall beside her, and outside her window a thrush is singing.

Éowyn lies there a long time. Looking at the light.

But at last she realises that her throat is parched to the point of pain; swallowing is agony, and she cannot help but whimper at the sensation, at her own helplessness.

And then her healer is there, tilting her head to help her drink something cool and fragrant with herbs.

"You are awake, then," Arwen says; there is something warm and tender in her words. "I am glad of it; you had a hard fight of it."

"I dreamed of you," Éowyn says hoarsely. "I do not remember - where am I? What has happened?"

Arwen smiles, very slow, very sweet. "You are in Minas Tirith, in the Houses of Healing. The siege is broken. And the people of the city are waiting to greet the hero who slew the Witch-King."

Éowyn shivers. She remembers his laughter, the cold - her uncle -

"Theoden," she cries. "Is he - "

She sees the answer in Arwen's face.

"Your brother is King of the Mark, now," she says, gently. She sets the empty cup down; her other hand is still curved around Éowyn's cheek, a small comfort.

Éowyn turns her head away to hide her tears.

"Is he here? Where - "

"He rides with Aragorn," Arwen says simply. "They march for the Black Gate."

"What? Have they gone mad?" Éowyn's voice is higher than she would wish, and full of fear.

Arwen's smile is still so gentle. "Far from it. It is a distraction, to turn Sauron's eye from his own lands at the last - one last deed they might do to aid Frodo in his quest."

Éowyn sighs, feeling grief and loss choking her again, that had only for a moment been laid to rest. It is brave, so brave... but she does not believe she will see her brother again.

"I should be with Éomer," she says, softly.

But Arwen shakes her head .

"No, lady. You will be needed here - _I_ need you!" Arwen pauses, suddenly shy. "That is - I rule here, by right of heritage and betrothal, until Aragorn shall return. But if Aragorn should not return... I would have another of our fellowship with me, here. I would not be alone."

Éowyn turns her head in Arwen's hand.

"I will not leave you, then." She stops her words; continues past her sudden blush. "I did it for you," she says, soft as breath. "When I fought the Lord of the Nazgûl... I did it for you. I wanted to be as brave as you."

Arwen's breath hitches; her cheeks are barely flushed. She could be a mortal woman, in this moment, delighted and shy - no.

She _is_ a mortal woman, now. That choice has been made for good.

It is the mortal woman who leans down to kiss her.

Éowyn is injured and exhausted, but she is still capable of _this_.

 

 

"Éowyn," Arwen says much later, breathless. "I should not... but you make me _want_."

Éowyn smiles back up at her, feeling the sting and the swell of kisses in her lips. "I want you, though I once feared I ought not. My lady, I would serve you, always. If you would have me..."

Arwen kisses her again, fiercely. "My brave knight... Oh, I _would_." She kisses Éowyn's eyelids, her forehead, her fingertips. "I have wanted so much I ought not. To be mortal, to _live_ , to rule... I will let Death have me willingly, if only first I might _live_."

Éowyn reaches out to touch her face. They are close to that fate, so close - for all the brightness of this room, this city, their fates rest on a knife's edge with the Ringbearer. "Do not speak of death, my lady."

Arwen smiles again, eyes hooded and dark. Mortal. But still so beautiful...

"No. Not yet."


End file.
